A federal judge in NY on Friday ordered President Donald Trump's administration to fully reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program known as DACA.
"In light of the vacatur, all parties agree that the DACA program is now governed by its terms as they existed prior to the attempted rescission of September 2017", Garaufis wrote in the ruling.
The Trump administration has been targeting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) since September 2017, focusing on its "America First" policy and rejecting immigration initiatives rolled out by the Obama administration.
Astrid Silva, executive director for Dream Big Nevada, an immigrant support organization, connected with the organization's followers via Facebook to answer questions from first-time applicants or current DACA recipients and congratulated the community. In court, Garaufis said, "The court believes that these additional remedies are reasonable", and later confirmed the DHS would publicize the changes.
"Our fearless plaintiffs have said from the beginning of this lawsuit that their home is here, and the court rightly recognized that today", she added. DACA recipients often are called "Dreamers" based on the name of legislation considered but never passed in Congress. To be eligible for the programme, recipients can not have felonies or serious misdemeanours on their records.
About 650,000 people are now enrolled in the program.
According to a 2019 report by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), there are at least 630,000 Indians who are undocumented, a 72 per cent increase since 2010.
In June the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration's 2017 attempt to end DACA, saying the administration's reasoning was "arbitrary and capricious".
Immigration is a hot button issue in the United States, and Congress over the years has failed repeatedly to pass reform legislation dealing with the millions of people living in the country without authorization.
Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on Jan 20, has said he plans to revitalise Daca.
Hoyer said that House Democrats passed the American Dream and Promise Act almost 18 months ago, and it has languished in the Republican-led Senate, notwithstanding the fact that a strong, bipartisan majority of Americans are demanding action, he said.
In his Friday opinion, Garaufis said that because of his previous ruling that Wolf wasn't serving lawfully, the memo regarding DACA wasn't properly issued. However, Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the Eastern District of NY ruled in November that, because DHS had not followed its own procedures in appointing an acting secretary, Wolf lacked the authority to act as head of the department and his memo was invalid.
The DACA program allows people who immigrated to the United States illegally as children to apply for a forbearance of removal, and permits them authorization to work and access other federal benefits.
It is well past time for DHS to finally follow the repeated judicial orders and begin to accept these applications, Schulte said.
The judge also instructed DHS officials to grant approved applicants work permits that last two years, and not the one year limit the Trump administration had proposed, according to CBS News. Wolf issued a memo in July, highlighting the new guidelines for DACA. "And that is why I love the work that I get to do and why I am going to raise my glass tonight and celebrate this win and every one that we can get". "Dreamers, and DACA, are here to stay", said Madhuri Grewal, federal immigration policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
